An inside look at Wayfair's India technology development Center

In a conversation with Rohit Kaila, Head of Technology and Site Leader at Wayfair India, we explore the strategic evolution of Global Capability Centres (GCCs) in India. Kaila provides an in-depth look into Wayfair's journey, detailing why the e-commerce giant chose Bengaluru for its second-largest tech hub. He shares insights on how Wayfair is leveraging India's top-tier talent, its unique approach to innovation, and the transformative impact of generative AI on its global operations.

Beyond the common goals of cost efficiency and talent acquisition, what are the two or three strategic propositions that Indian GCCs bring to global organisations?

Indian GCCs have come in various forms, and many are for cost optimisation or talent extension. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, I can speak about the Wayfair GCC. Our goal in setting up the India Technology Development Centre was to bring in top talent from the industry and build a centre on par with all our other technology development centres. We have TDCs in Boston, Mountain View, Toronto, and Seattle. The India TDC is the second-largest technology development centre for Wayfair, and it is on par with the others, bringing in very strong, top talent to do the far-reaching work we want to do.

In the retail space, a lot is changing, and technology is a key element for making retail successful. We chose to set up the centre in India, and specifically Bengaluru, because we found very strong talent, not just from a technology perspective but from a domain perspective as well. A Zinnov report states that almost 70% of all retail technology talent in India resides within the Bengaluru area. We picked this location to tap into that fantastic technology and domain expertise, which allows us to build a great centre that will develop technology for our future.

Many companies are now expanding their GCCs from Tier 1 cities to Tier 2 cities. How can organisations strategise their talent acquisition and growth plans in this context while maintaining world-class standards for their workforce?

The strategy depends on the goals you set for your GCC. Are you focused on scale, cost, or, like us, top-tier talent? Based on these objectives, you can choose your strategy. For organisations that need to hire hundreds or even thousands of people, Tier 1 cities can become bottlenecks. The strong demand for talent and the growing populations of these cities can lead to a decline in people's quality of life, making it difficult to attract a large number of people.

Companies are now looking to Tier 2 cities to find talent. This has become a very important aspect because the quality of life is much better in these cities. Retention rates are higher, and people do not switch jobs as quickly, partly because the opportunities are more focused and stronger. This has brought great value to many GCCs. However, the breadth and depth of talent can be more limited. Despite this, many GCCs find it valuable to go to Tier 2 cities to find a specific kind of talent for a specific kind of work, with the added benefits of a better quality of life, higher retention, and lower costs.

A new concept that has emerged is "GCC as a service." While GCCs were initially designed to build an internal talent pool, companies are now offering this service to other organisations. What is your take on this, and how do you see India's role in this new market?

As more companies come to India to set up GCCs, they encounter local complexities. If they lack expertise in running global organisations in India, they face challenges with talent acquisition, registration, finance, HR practices, and attracting top leadership.

Companies can take multiple routes. One is to hand over the entire GCC setup to a strong technology partner or service company that can build and operate the centre for them. A second option is for companies to offer a turnkey solution, where they build the centre and then transfer it back to the client once it is operational.

A third route, which Wayfair chose, is to build the centre itself. We knew exactly what we wanted and that we could not depend on a third party for the specific talent we needed. We hired our top leader (me) as the first employee and built everything from scratch. We did, however, take help from firms like Zinnov with the setup. This choice depends on the level of expertise a company has and what it wants to achieve. There is a fantastic opportunity for companies to offer GCC as a service, as it provides great value to those who lack the expertise to set up and run a centre themselves.

While GCCs are integrating GenAI and automation for productivity and efficiency, how will this integration help in building truly innovative products and aid in decision-making for global operations?

Generative AI is a pivotal moment for every company, regardless of location. This is not just about GCCs or India; it is a fundamental shift in the technology sector. I have been in the industry long enough to see many such pivots, but this is one of the biggest changes that will impact every facet of our lives and the lives of engineers and technologists worldwide.

GCCs are no different, and India is adopting these changes very quickly. At Wayfair, the adoption of generative AI by our engineers in India—whether for productivity, faster deployments, or improving the core product—is on par with our other TDCs. We see the same challenges and adoption rates in Bengaluru as we do in Boston, Mountain View, and Seattle.

This shift is fundamentally changing the workforce. In five years, things will look very different. Customers now expect to be sold products through agents, changing the entire experience. Engineers' daily lives have changed, and business operations have higher expectations for what can be achieved. This change is not GCC-specific; it is happening in every corner of the world. Everyone in this space is upskilling, and GCCs are doing a good job of leading this change, but we must continue on this path.

While we have discussed the integration of AI, let us also talk about finances. How does Wayfair's India Technology Centre directly contribute to enhancing your omnichannel experience and improving overall profitability?

Wayfair has a clear and critical stance: we do not do anything specific to India or any single technology development centre. Our business, technology, and operations goals are set at the corporate level, and every centre works toward those. We do not focus on India-specific innovations; our focus is Wayfair-specific. You would not see a difference in what we work on or how we work in our Boston, Bay Area, Toronto, or Bengaluru offices.

In retail, a customer's purchase touches many different parts of the business—customer experience, supplier technology, and supply chain. All of these domains are interconnected, and we cannot work in silos. We have common goals that everybody works on. As the second-largest centre, the India Technology Development Centre naturally has a significant responsibility to deliver good results for our customers due to the sheer volume of work done here. We do not do anything specific to a particular centre.

As you are developing your tech stack and leveraging artificial intelligence, are there one or two "moonshot" projects being developed within your centres that will revolutionise global operations for Wayfair?

We do not have specific projects for my technology development centre; we have a graded approach for the entire company. We have the day-to-day work of ensuring our current systems run smoothly, and we also focus on our core operations. We are one of the best large-parcel delivery companies in the world, and we continuously work to improve that. We have also taken a lot of big bets at the highest level, such as "Verified by Wayfair," where we verify furniture and brands to build customer confidence. This is a very strong, graded approach.

Some projects are moonshots, and some are more mundane, but we cover the entire spectrum. Customer experience and physical retail are huge aspects of this. The bets we are taking now touch multiple elements of our technology stack, and parts of this work are done in different TDCs, including India. We all come together to create a unified customer experience. We also work on tech transformation, moving from our old stack to a new one, using generative AI to make the process smarter. Each of these parts touches every centre we operate in.

Could you share some numbers, such as the current capacity of your India centre and the upskilling initiatives you are driving to prepare the workforce for the current industry landscape?

As our centre is constantly growing. Regarding upskilling, it is a key initiative. Every engineer at Wayfair has access to a wide range of generative AI tools. We continuously review these tools and provide them to everyone, from new university graduates to engineers with 25 or 30 years of experience.

We also run continuous training programs for our employees. Our HR team has many practices for employee well-being to help them cope with everything happening in the world. I like to use the term "skilling" rather than "upskilling" because the world is changing so fast, and we must constantly adapt. We provide our engineers with all the tools and experiences they need to be the most productive and best engineers of tomorrow. This is our philosophy for every centre and every employee.

How can organisations restructure their vision to transition GCCs from strong capability centres into true innovation hubs?

I will give you Wayfair's perspective, which closely aligns with my own. The kind of work we do does not require you to leave everything and go into a room to innovate. We are a retail company, and our innovation is a process of continuous improvement and continuous innovation in the work we do. We want to ensure that every employee—engineer, product manager, and so on—can innovate and create value for our customers, all within our overall guidelines. Since we established our GCC as another technology development centre, we follow the same principles as every other office. This makes innovation part of Wayfair's DNA. Our founders, Niraj and Steve, still run the company as if it were day one, and this founder-led culture means innovation is in our blood. As a TDC, we are part of that same DNA.

From my perspective, I believe the more you integrate a GCC and do not treat it as a separate entity, the better the chances of overall innovation. It is rare to have isolated islands of innovation; it is almost always part of a company's DNA. The reverse is also true: if a company decides to do all its innovation at its headquarters and uses a GCC only for cost reasons, it will not get the real value it could from the centre.